By James Lomuscio
The summer’s heavy rains, high temperatures and humidity dealt another round of mold worries at Coleytown Middle School.
The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the school’s circulating fans, in the name of energy efficiency, were shut off while school was out, Westport Schools Superintendent Colleen Palmer told the school board tonight.
“The circulating fans that would move the air around were shut off when a person was not in the room, which was most of the summer,” said Palmer, adding that it created “a perfect climate for mold to grow.”
But once it was discovered, she said, an intense remediation began four weeks ago with industrial strength dehumidifiers, air scrubbers and the installation of mold resistant ceiling tiles. The Westport Weston Health District has since examined the building, giving it a good bill of health.
And now, says Palmer, the school will be safe for students when it opens Tuesday.
“I just want to assure all of our parents we would not open the school tomorrow if we did not think it was a safe place for our children,” she said.
The auditorium, however, will remain closed for further remediation since mold was discovered on its ceiling, according to Elio Longo, school business administrator.
Longo said the total cost of the summer and ongoing efforts would run between $300,000 and $350,000 for tiles and rentals of dehumidifiers, generators to run them, fuel for the generators, hygienic studies and offer related expenses.
Some board members talked about the need for a permanent, infrastructure solutions, not temporary fixes. Citing previous high expenditures on mold, Jeannie Smith, school board vice chairwoman, questioned whether the school might be considered a “teardown of the day.”
One parent, who said her son suffers from severe mold allergies, said she was not convinced Coleytown would be safe for him when it opens Tuesday. She said she might keep him home and called the recent efforts “polishing a turd.”
“It’s still a turd,” she said.
According to Longo, the school spent $704,000 on mold remediation over the past two years, with the town recouping $562,367 from its insurance carrier AIG. He said he was looking at how to apply the insurance payout to the current projects.
The situation raised the ire of Michael Rea, vice chairman of the Board of Finance, who excoriated the school board over the ongoing mold problem.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that you’re still kicking it around,” Rea said. “You’re dealing with it on a piecemeal basis. I think you need to get serious.”
Palmer said earlier that the school should review the infrastructure of all the district’s schools, noting that Coleytown’s below grade classrooms were prime candidates for mold.
“We’re taking this very seriously, not a Band-Aid, but a permanent solution,” she said. “I don’t want this to happen at any other school and to be proactive in the district.”
The repeated mold remediation efforts at Coleytown recalled a stubborn mold problem at Kings Highway Elementary School going back to at least 2007.
At that time, the town, asserting it was the owner of the school building, appointed a special task force to deal with the problem over the objection of then Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon.
In 2014, the mold problem at the school persisted, and the Board of Education criticized Landon for not informing it of the magnitude of a $1.65 million cost overrun to again remediate mold at Kings Highway.
